Venture to the Middle of My Mom
by The Nerdinator
Summary: New Heroes, S1E6. Petunia gets sick, but her illness doesn't match any known disease. It turns out that Dr. Colon has infected her with a new form of protozoan, using her as a test subject! The human Grossologists are shrunk down and planted in Petunia's body to keep the protozoa from escaping her body; Jetpack, meanwhile, has to distract Harvey and keep him from finding out.
1. Cold Open

**AN: Today marks one year on the site! Thank you all for your support!**

* * *

The hand of an unseen man poured the liquid blue contents of a test tube down the drain of a sink. The fluid snaked its way through the pipes, before its contents ended up in a white mug.

Petunia Archer (nee Howard) took a swig of her water, not knowing she had just endangered her life.

(Cue theme song).


	2. Cheese, Gromit!

**AN: This fic is set on June 22, 2014.**

 **Currently I'm sick and at the hospital, so Nykus (my intern) is writing this in my stead.**

* * *

"Remind me again why we're cleaning out the fridge," Abby said.

Currently she, Ty, and their father were searching through their refrigerator.

"Because there could be leftovers we've constantly left over," Harvey said. "And if we keep leaving them over, they'll leave US over."

"...I don't follow that logic."

"Doesn't matter," Ty said. "I'm getting some extra calories in my system. And considering I can regrow my brain, I need all the calories I can get." He stuffed some month-old meatloaf into his mouth. "And for me," he continued, "this stuff doesn't taste that bad."

"Ty, please don't talk with your mouth full," Petunia said. Unlike the others, she had decided to search the pantry. "It's not good manners. And besides, you could get sick from eating that."

"Nope, can't," Ty replied, after swallowing. "My extreme omnivory bolstered my immune system. It's next to impossible for me to get sick."

Petunia sighed and opened an ancient box of crackers. She was not expecting the mouse to jump out and hit the ground running.

"We need to get that mouse," Harvey said.

"I know!" Jetpack said. He had been tasked with getting rid of some expired milk. "What if we turn this old milk into cheese, and then we use it as bait?"

"Mice don't like cheese," Ty said. "Like all mammals at adulthood (except for humans and maybe rats), they're lactose-intolerant. They only eat cheese out of desperation if their normal diet - seeds and a little bit of meat - aren't accessible."

"So the internet LIED?!"

"The internet is full of lies." He paused, and then added, "And bad spelling."

A little bit later, Harvey's phone rang. Taking it out, he said to his family, "It's my boss. I have to take this."

"Okay dear, just promise me you won't do anything rash," Petunia said. They kissed, and Harvey went downstairs to the basement in case there was classified information only he was allowed to hear.

A mewling noise filled the air. The owner of the noise soon revealed himself to be an orange cat with a cream-colored underbelly: Hairball, Abby's cat, who'd grown into adulthood since the last time you saw him.

"Aww, c'mere, little guy," Abby cooed, squatting down. Hairball meowed at her, and Abby recoiled. "Ew, your breath smells like dead mouse."

Petunia and her sons chuckled (Jetpack didn't know why he was doing it, but he was doing it anyway).

Then the laughter ceased when Petunia's face turned pale. She lurched forward, wobbled over to the sink, and threw up.

"Can I eat the bleurgh?" Jetpack asked.

"Not this time," Ty said. "Do that and you'll be a disease vector."

"I know what a disease is...but what's a vector?"

"A nerdy villain from Despicable Me," Abby grumbled. "Mom's sick, guys. Mom, how are you feeling?"

"Not good. My head hurts, it hurts to stand, I think I'm gonna puke again [she did just that], my stomach really, really hurts, so does my throat..." and then she puked a third time.

"All those symptoms together..." Abby said, getting back up. "That's not good. We need to get you to the Lab. Come on, Ty; we need you to morph into an ambulance."

"No driver's license, remember? I can't do that."

"Well, morph into something else! Jetpack, stay here. If Dad comes, we'll need you to distract him."

She and Ty left, the latter using his superstrength to gingerly carry Petunia out the door.

Harvey returned. "Where are the others?" he asked.

"They're replacing the leftovers," Jetpack fibbed.

Harvey shrugged. "Okay. Say, why don't I teach you about the world? You are my son, after all."

"Okay."


	3. In Which Petunia Does Not Get Naked

**AN: This chapter is written by me. However, I can't come back to the studio until next week.**

 **Stupid viruses from the future I have no natural immunity to.**

* * *

 _Stomp._

 _Stomp._

Lab Rat noticed his soda was vibrating. He turned around to see a massive light blue _Brachiosaurus altithorax_ , with a tan underbelly, gray back spines, and the beginnings of a lavender dewlap sack (ergo, a male) enter the lab.

The _Brachiosaurus_ lowered his head to the ground, letting Abby and an unconscious Petunia slip to the ground. The _Brachiosaurus_ demorphed.

"Wasn't that overkill?" Abby asked.

"Did everyone give the 39-foot-long, 12-foot-tall adolescent male _Brachiosaurus_ the right of way?" Ty replied, doing that thing with his eyebrows.

"I hate you so much right now. You _know_ Mom isn't good with heights."

"I didn't, actually. How was I supposed to know she was gonna pass out?"

"Guys, stop arguing," Lab Rat said. "First of all, what's going on?"

"Mom got sick," Abby explained. "Normally I wouldn't come here, but it seemed serious. And not only that, but it seemed like she was getting multiple diseases at the same time. Malaria, giardiasis, babesiosis, chagas, leishmaniasis...she's showing symptoms of all five."

"Well, those are all diseases that are caused by protozoan parasites," Lab Rat said. "So that narrows it down a bit. Protozoan parasites - including the ones you mentioned - use humans as a host body to provide resources so that the parasites can make more of themselves."

"And we could use some extra human-killing protozoa running around," Kid Rot interrupted from his jar on one of the Gag Lab's shelves.

"Why would you want that? Your DNA is primarily fungal and bacterial in origin."

"Also, shut your gooey brown yap. Show a little concern, would ya?" Ty asked.

"He's a parasite, Ty," Abby grumbled. "He only cares about his own growth. No wonder he tried to prevent me from getting with Chester." She realized what she had just said. "Dangit!"

"Well, that's an interesting turn of events," Kid Rot said to himself, summoning a psuedopod and stroking his nonexistent chin with it.

Petunia finally came to. "Is this the lab? Did it expand again?" She barfed on the floor.

"And they didn't even bring the walking barf disposal," Kid Rot said to the reader.

"Well, yes. Mrs. Archer, my name is Lab Rat, and I'm here to help." Petunia got up as Lab Rat stood proudly.

"You're taller than you look," she commented.

"Thanks. Most people say it the other way around. Now, I'm going to have to get a urine sample. There are too many gut flora in your vomit for me to use it to accurately find what's making you sick." He produced a transparent cup from behind his back.

Petunia began to take off her pants.

"We have a bathroom," Lab Rat said, cutting her off.

"Oh. Thanks for telling me before things got weird." Petunia took the cup and left for the bathroom.

"Can I look now?" Ty asked. He was covering his eyes, and had generated a second pair of arms to cover Abby's.

"Yeah, you can look," Lab Rat said.

Ty absorbed his extra arms and uncovered his eyes. "Okay, on a scale of one to ten, that was an ew."

"Kid Rot did make a good point, though," Lab Rat said. "Where's Jetpack?"

"He's with Dad. If Dad knew Mom was this sick, he'd flip his [s word]," Ty explained. He made a face. "And now I can't stop imagining Jetpack asking me how one would flip their own fecal matter."

Abby slapped him.

"Thank you. The image is gone."

Petunia returned, the cup now filled with a warm yellow liquid. She handed it to Lab Rat, who stuck a rod attached to a wire into it.

"What's that?" Petunia asked.

"The Patholyzer. It has the DNA sequences of every extant human pathogen, plus a few extinct ones. This will tell us exactly what is infecting you."

 _BEEP_.

The picture of a mysterious-looking pink protozoan filled the screen. Next to it were the images of... _five different species of protozoa?!_

"Odd...the patholyzer is saying that it's getting them all at once," Lab Rat said. "Is it broken?"

Abby looked at Kid Rot.

"Kid Rot's a hybrid parasite," she realized. "Mom must've been infected with...a hybrid parasite made from the DNA of _Plasmodium falciparum, Giardia lamblia, Babesia microti, Trypanosoma cruzi,_ and one of any of the 21 species of the genus _Leishmania_ that cause disease."

Petunia paled. "Could I...die?"

"And more importantly, who made those things?"

The transmission screen hummed to life, as the image of a man with bloodshot eyes, a triangular head, and bad teeth filled the screen.

"Hello, Grossologists," Dr. Cornelius Colon said, smilily evilly.


	4. Dr Colon is a Butt

"Dr. Colon," Abby said, her face filled with anger. "What did you do to my mother?"

"Just a little something I call Colonosis," Dr. Colon replied. "My greatest creation yet. I made _life_. And soon that life will make _death_. For, you see, I have created a much more effective way of dispatching my enemies than planet-sized tripe: a parasitic protozoan that, after 5 hours of its ingestion, _will kill their host_!" He cackled. "I wasn't intending for your mother to be my first human test subject, but fate is a fickle thing. Well, I'll be checking back later to see how the protozoa are doing. Ninety-eight minutes, Grossologists. That's all you have." The transmission ended.

Petunia shuddered. "I-I don't want to die..."

"You won't," Lab Rat reassured her. Then he got an idea. "Ty, can you morph your hand into a shrink ray?"

"Sure, but why do you ask?" Ty asked.

"Because I've got our next assignment. You guys are going to shrink yourselves down to the size of bacteria and go inside your mom's bloodstream. Once you find the protozoa, kill them."

"Sounds great," Abby said. "Come on Ty, we've got some protists to pop."

"Hold your horses," Lab Rat said. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to risk _any_ of those protozoa escaping your mom's body. And Ty duplicating himself probably won't be very efficient."

"He's right," Ty said. "I've barely used it, so I don't know much about controlling it."

"You've only had your superpowers for eight days, genius," Abby pointed out.

"Yes, but I've already used morphing, extreme omnivory, and bodily extension _a lot_ already. Those are my strongest powers thus far."

"Does this mean we need the others?" Abby whined.

Petunia put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "I know you're used to working only with one other agent," she said gently. "I had the same problem back when I was your age. But there's a special thing about having such a large team: one of you is bound to get something right, even if no one else does."

Abby sighed in defeat. "Fine...Lab Rat, get The Director to call the others...except Jetpack. He does _not_ get called."

* * *

Speaking of Jetpack...

The robot was walking with Harvey down the sidewalk. A turn to the left, and Jetpack found himself staring at his mortal enemy.

A traffic light.

"You know how to cross streets on foot, right?" Harvey asked his son.

"I just fly over the cars," Jetpack replied. "So...no."

"Well, one day you may be too tired to use your wings, so today's just as good a day as any. When the light is green, you can walk. When the light is red, you stop. When the light is yellow and you're in the street, finish crossing; if you're not in the street, don't cross."

The light flickered from cherry red to teal.

"Okay, Jetpack. Cross. And be quick with it; the lights usually aren't green for long." Harvey crossed the street to demonstrate. Jetpack followed suit, but the light suddenly changed to its golden color.

Jetpack froze.

The light went back to red.

From further down the street a massive gray SUV roared and barrelled down the street. Jetpack didn't fly this time; he ran. And soon he found himself on the other side of the street. "Yay," he said, relieved.

The driver of the SUV revealed herself as the driver's window rolled down. She was around Ty and Abby's age, with brown hair, slightly tanned skin, and dark gray eyes. Jetpack also felt something else, believing it to be residual fear from almost being flattened; but in reality, the feeling was the pure, unadulterated hatred the girl held for the world.

"Get out of my way, you [f word]ing lump of scrap!" the girl hissed.

"Don't speak to my son that way!" Harvey snarled.

"Your son? That piece of junk is your son? Honestly, people these days are taking in the strangest stuff." She rolled up the window. The light in front of her turned red, but she didn't care, and the SUV sped through the red light.

"I don't know much, but isn't that against something?"

"Yes. Running red lights is illegal. Insulting someone for adopting a robot should be too."

Jetpack began to feel a bit...unwanted.


	5. Beauty and a Heartbeat

"We came as fast as we could, guys," Chester said as he, Paige, and Naomi entered the lab.

"Well it wasn't fast enough," Abby grumbled. "We've lost twenty minutes already."

"Don't blame me, blame the traffic. Not to mention some idiot in an SUV nearly ran us down."

Paige shuddered at the thought. "Oh, don't remind me. It's scary enough that we've got a synthetic parasite on the loose."

"Hey, guys?" Lab Rat interrupted. "Can you help me a bit over here?" He and Ty were currently setting up a complex arrangement of mirrors on the shelves in the lab.

"Oh, certainly," Naomi said. She and Chester joined the other boys in whatever complex plan they had in mind.

"Careful where you put your feet," Kid Rot said from his jar. "On second thought..."

"Nice try, but we're not letting you out."

Kid Rot pouted.

Petunia was currently lying down on the lab's examination table. "Wow...this place really _is_ bigger than I remember it."

"Funny, you don't look _that_ old," Paige remarked.

"Hey...aren't you that girl who was mean to Abby back in ninth and tenth grade?"

"Yeah, that would be me," Paige grumbled. "If you want to know why, don't ask."

"Actually, I think I can figure out why you were so mean," Petunia said. "Your parents never spent a lot of time with you, and you never had friends when you needed them most. So you developed an abrasive, bullying persona to make people not _want_ to get close enough to find out how lonely you really are, among other reasons."

"Wow," Paige said, dumbfounded. "That's...very accurate. Are you psychic?"

"No, but I know someone who went through the same things you're going through now."

Paige blinked, before snapping back to reality. "I need to set up some mirrors," she said. She left the side of the examination table.

"Seriously, Mom? You're _sympathizing_ with her?" Abby asked.

"Young lady, reforming villains _is_ part of the bureau's mission statement. In my years as a Grossologist, I've personally participated in the reformations of many despicable beings."

Abby sighed. "Well, don't come running to me if she turns evil. Oh, wait, she already _is_."

"Okay, we're done!" Lab Rat called from the other side of the lab. "Everybody into the GRS-1!"

Ty super-extended his left arm like a whip, then reeled it in, pulling the GRS-1 into the main room of the lab (which was now big enough so that the flying machine could actually fit). All five of the human Team Grossology piled into it, although the hatch had not been closed.

"So...what's the plan?" Chester asked.

"Easy," Ty replied, showing him the drawing of the plan he had done in red Sharpie. "I'll morph my hand into a shrink ray and fire it at the mirrors. The reflective sides will cause the beam to ricochet until it hits us, shrinking us to the size of bacteria. Lab Rat will inject us into Mom's bloodstream, and then we'll find the protozoa, destroy them, and no one will die."

"We have about seventy-five minutes until your mother's central nervous system shuts down," Lab Rat said. "We'd better hurry."

"I summon...shrink-ray-hand!" Ty exclaimed, his right hand morphing into a rectangular device with numerous blue glowing orbs. He aimed it at one of the mirrors and fired, then quickly demorphed his hand and slammed the hatch on the GRS-1.

The blue beam ricocheted off the mirrors, just like Ty had said it would. Each reflection seemed to increase its energy, for the beam grew thicker each time it bounced off of a mirror. Finally, it slammed into the GRS-1, which rapidly began to shrink. Lab Rat caught the GRS-1 when it had shrunk to the size of a pea in a hypodermic syringe, and capped it as the GRS-1 continued to shrink.

A buzzing noise came onto the screen as a transmission came on to the screen.

"Lab Rat, we've finished shrinking. We're ready for injection," Abby said.

"Copy that," Lab Rat answered. He rolled up Petunia's shirt sleeve and carefully poked the head of it into her left arm. He pushed the stopper, down, then turned behind him to check with the others. "You guys in?"

"We're in," Abby replied, turning her Grossometer to show the cells of a vein outside the GRS-1's window. The screen began to flicker. "We're losing contact. We're so small that the radio waves from your computer just bypass us. We'll let you know we're done, k?" The screen abruptly switched to static.

"They're on their own now," Lab Rat said quietly.

Petunia, who had been brave enough while getting the injection, finally lost composure and said, "Ow."

* * *

The GRS-1 had been lodged in the wall of the vein, allowing the staph-sized Grossologists to think.

"Okay guys, we've got about seventy minutes to find the protozoa and kill them," Abby said. "Any thoughts?"

"Dr. Colon's intestine-themed, right?" Chester piped up.

"Yeah, he is," Abby said, smiling at the fact that her crush knew about the obscure villain.

"There you go. The protozoa should be located in your mom's intestine. All we need is a way to get there. You got any ideas, Paige? I mean, The Director decided you were going to be our strategist a few days ago, so..."

"'All we need is a way to get there?'" Paige scoffed. "Please. Even _I_ know that our route is right in front of us." She pointed to the red blood cells absentmindedly floating through the plasma below them. "The bloodstream goes to every part of the body. All we do is follow that to wherever it goes, then we'll cycle back to the heart. From there we just choose the right blood vessel that leads us straight to the bowels."

"That's...actually a pretty good plan..." Abby grumbled, embarrassed that someone dumber than her had done a better job at strategy than she would have. She snapped back to her normal self. "Okay, we follow the blood. It's dark red, so that must mean we're in a vein. We won't have to cycle back."

"Going to the heart should take a few seconds," Naomi added. "Admittedly, we might not get the right vessel the first time, so our trip will take longer."

"That's a risk we'll have to take," Abby said. "However, we can't risk the immune system destroying us. We're foreign particles, so they'll assume we're germs and try to - TY, WHAT THE [f word] ARE YOU DOING?!"

In the midst of their conversation, Ty had gone ooze-mode and somehow slipped outside of the GRS-1. He swam towards a red blood cell the size the GRS-1 was now, and ate it. He turned around, morphed his left hand into a flit, and sprayed the complete outside of the GRS-1 in an orange mist. He went ooze-mode again, slipped back inside the GRS-1, and belched, covering the inside of the vehicle in the mist as well.

"There ya go," Ty said. "One full coating of Mom's antigens. Now her body will think we're part of her."

Abby sighed. She longed for the days when it was just her and maybe Ty also.

"At least we're protected now," Naomi said quietly.

Abby eased the GRS-1 out of the vein and turned off the engine, letting the slow, steady, soothing beat of the heart thrust the machine forward in rhythm with the blood.


	6. Para-sightings

Harvey poked his head around a tree. "Jetpack?" he asked playfully. "Where are you, son?"

No reply.

Harvey chewed his lip. "Man, that robot knows how to hide. Who'd've thought he'd be so good at hide-and-seek despite having just learned what it even is?" He shrugged. "Looks like he wins."

"Yay!" Jetpack exclaimed, swinging down from the tree, hanging upside-down by his feet, startling his father.

"My goodness, Jetpack, you scared me," Harvey gasped, trying to not fall over. "How did you get up there?"

"I walked," he replied simply.

"Hm," Harvey mused. "Must be an insect thing."

"Why don't you come up here and join me? There's a lot of room up here."

"I'm sorry son. I'd like to, but I can't climb trees like you do."

Jetpack's antennae drooped.

"No, Jetpack, it's just...I've never had a robot child before. This, this is a new experience for me, and quite frankly I'm a bit scared."

"Abby says my face scares her."

"I'm going to have a word with that girl," Harvey muttered. "But that doesn't change anything, Jetpack. I love you as my son, and no one in this crazy planet can do a thing to change my mind."

Jetpack dropped out of the tree, landing on his head. He quickly got up and hugged his father.

* * *

"Well, after thirty-three wrong turns - including one to the _ovaries_ \- we've managed to make it to Mom's intestinal tract," Abby said tiredly.

Squeezing out of an intestinal capillary, the GRS-1 glided through an air bubble located in the traverse colon. There, they saw numerous teardrop-shaped protozoa, each one twice the size of the GRS-1. A single flagellum extended from the back of each of the purplish cells. Nearby were spots where blood oozed from the intestinal walls. The five tiny humans watched as one of them spewed a stream of chemicals, damaging one of the nearby intestinal cells.

"Toxins," Chester explained to a confused Paige.

"Is that how they eat or something?"

"Possibly, but I don't know enough about protozoan biology to say."

"You made Kid Rot," the dumber blonde pointed out.

"He's mostly bacterial and fungal in DNA composition."

"Guys," Abby groaned, and the two blondes fell silent. "We need to stop these parasites quickly or else..." she choked "...I'm going to witness the death of another family member."

"It'll be okay," Chester reassured her. "We just need to get the immune system here. I don't see any white blood cells, which is honestly pretty weird..."

"I'll get them," Ty piped up. "I'll just morph into something and use myself as bait. It'll be easy."

"Make sure you get eosinophils," Naomi told him. "They're the ones that specifically target protozoa. Their nuclei are shaped like headphones, you can't miss 'em."

"Thank you," Ty said, slipping out of the GRS-1 as an ooze. A flash of light, and he slithered away as a gray protozoan.

Naomi chuckled. "What's so funny?" Abby asked.

"Ty morphed into an _Entamoeba histolytica_ ," Naomi explained. "As in, the cause of amoebic dysentery."

"Wow, won't that be ironic," Abby laughed. "Dr. Colon's intestinal parasites are defeated by another." Her face changed. "Chester has a good point, why aren't there any white blood cells here? They should be swarming all around us right now."

"Would that thing have anything to do with it?" Chester asked. Abby turned around to see a tiny robot. As soon as a neutrophil came near it, a spike shot out and popped it, spilling cytoplasm everywhere.

"Dr. Colon must've planned this," Abby said, worried. "Kill the white blood cells, and the parasites can multiply freely. We HAVE to destroy that robot."

"Roger that." Naomi reached over and pressed a button. The goop cannons hummed to life. "Firing when ready, chief."

"Okay, wait for it..."

The nanobot passed in front of the GRS-1.

"NOW!"

Naomi fired. A stream of goop plastered the nanobot to the intestinal wall.

"That'll teach you to mess with us," Paige glared at the nanobot.

"The cavalry is here!" a voice called. The four teens turned to see Ty, still an amoeba, being chased by a swarm of white blood cells - eosinophils, to be exact. Ty then morphed into a red blood cell, and the granulocytes stopped chasing him, thinking he was one of his mother's cells. Then they saw the parasites and began to chow down. Ty morphed into a macrophage and started helping. Soon, all the parasites were dead.

"Woo-hoo!" Ty whooped as he oozed back into the GRS-1. "We're good!"

"And with twenty-five minutes to spare!" Naomi added. "Good job, Ty."

"You weren't so bad yourself," Abby said. "Come on. Let's get out of here-"

The GRS-1 suddenly doubled in size.

"-before the shrink ray wears off," she finished, glaring at Ty.

"I didn't tell you this, but I discovered shrink-ray-hand this _morning_. Do you think I would know it's only temporary?"

"Let's just get out of here," Chester said.

The GRS-1 doubled in size again.

"Little problem," Abby grumbled. "We're too big to fit into the narrow blood vessels now."

"We're in an intestine, remember?" Chester reminded her.

"...Don't say what I think you're going to say."

"I was going to say have your mom burp us out. All we need to do is get up to her stomach and not get dissolved by the acid."

"Oh, I thought you meant take us out the other way."

"Less yakking, more escaping!" Paige snapped as the GRS-1 doubled in size again.

* * *

Harvey and Jetpack were walking home. Jetpack had eventually had enough of keeping secrets and told his dad what had happened to Petunia. Harvey was shocked.

"We were afraid you would be mad at us," Jetpack explained.

"Well, yeah, seeing that my wife's in danger!" Harvey groaned as they neared their house.

"Mom's not sick anymore. I just got a notification from Ty."

"Oh. At least Petunia's safe now," he breathed a sigh of relief.

"But you're not!" Dr. Colon exclaimed, jumping out of a nearby bush and brandishing a test tube. "Do you really think I wouldn't have made a backup supply?"

Jetpack turned around and fired a shot of acid into the tube. The contents dissolved.

"...Dangit!"

Then he fell over.

Petunia stood behind him, her right hand a fist. She had punched Colon out. "I'm a former Grossologist. And I've still got it. DON'T cross me again," she sneered at him.

"Will remember that," Colon said weakly.

Then she burped, and the now-pinhead-sized GRS-1 flew out of her mouth into the air. It then quickly resumed its proper size and slammed onto the street.

"We," Abby moaned as the hatch opened, "are never doing that again."


	7. Credits Gag

"So...what was your call about?" Petunia asked.

"Eh, just some changes in management at the plant. Nothing big," Harvey replied simply.

"What changes?"

"We got a new manager. Previous one said this city was 'too gross'."

"Hey," Petunia chuckled, "you'd need an iron stomach to live in this city."

"I found a slug in the bathroom!" Harvey and Petunia heard Ty call from upstairs.

"No way! Lemme see!" they heard Abby say.

"I rest my case," Petunia said.

The end.


End file.
